Wrong Turnings Read online

  WRONG TURNINGS

  John Burke

  © John Burke 2004

  John Burke has asserted his rights under the Copyright, Design and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the author of this work.

  First published in 2004 by Robert Hale Limited.

  This edition published in 2018 by Endeavour Media Ltd.

  Table of Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter One

  Anna Chisholm stared at the curtains in outrage. She had not been very favourably impressed by this last family, but had never expected quite such desecration.

  ‘Marmalade!’ It exploded with all the fervour of a swearword. ‘Look at it! I mean, did you ever see such . . . I mean . . . marmalade!’

  The list of regulations in each of the two self-catering cottages was as comprehensive as she had thought necessary, occasionally added to after some unexpected upset. Dogs were banned not merely because her mother-in-law’s mongrel invariably went for any such intruder but because the sort of visitors who brought dogs were the sort to go tramping over the countryside and returning with mud all over their boots, ready for transfer to the carpets. Once there had been a party of fishermen who went out one cold morning with dogs, balaclavas and guns, leading to an immediate rumour: ‘The IRA’s doing a recce.’

  No football in the courtyard. And no flying of kites, since one flown by a kid from Covenanter’s Cottage had got ravelled round Stables Cottage’s TV aerial and ruined the tenants’ viewing of World Cup football, making them ask for their money back.

  She had not thought it necessary to proscribe physical violence or murder on the premises, because people renting holiday cottages didn’t do that sort of thing, did they?

  Not nowadays, anyway. There were local legends about troubles in the late Georgian era, when Stables Cottage had really been a stable block, and a villainous laird had horsewhipped a stable lad to death for making unseemly advances to his daughter. After converting the barn on the far side of the yard, Peter Chisholm had named it Covenanter’s Cottage after an incident during the Killing Times of the seventeenth-century Scottish Lowlands when the most sadistic of the Persecutors had hunted down two adherents of the National Covenant in Galloway, hacked them to pieces, and left the remains to rot on the hill behind the farmhouse.

  Peter’s ghost was still vivid in Anna’s memory. But ghosts of those other, long-ago sadnesses had never been known to haunt the place.

  Marmalade was real and immediate.

  ‘Creative expressiveness in marmalade,’ raged Anna. ‘I suppose that’s how the doting parents see it.’

  Stuart Morgan, who had as usual come in to help with the Saturday morning changeover, prodded the curtain with a wary finger. When he tried to pull his finger back, the curtain came billowing with it. He fought his hand loose and lifted the card from the window-ledge below the curtain. ‘Getting a bit greasy, isn’t it? Can hardly read the house rules any more.’

  ‘That’s not grease. It’s more marmalade.’

  ‘Better add a new clause. ‘Spreading marmalade on anything but toast is strictly forbidden.’’ He looked over her shoulder at the far wall. ‘Didn’t draw moustaches on your marsh marigolds, did they?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘That painting of yours — you’ve taken it down?’

  Anna couldn’t believe it. ‘They’ve nicked it. Nicked my picture.’

  ‘You should be flattered. Never expected your watercolours to be collectors’ pieces.’

  She attacked a cushion on the sofa, pummelling it into shape and then wrenching it out again. ‘That man Ritchie and his letting agency’ — a hefty punch into another cushion — ‘are going to have some chasing up to do when next I get into town to see him.’ She slammed a half-open cupboard door shut. ‘I’ll have to get another picture from the shop.’ And this one, she vowed to herself, would be screwed to the wall. ‘And the curtains . . . we’ll have to dig out some old ones to be going on with.’

  ‘Take it easy.’ Stuart’s voice was at its most lazily reassuring. Often she found it soothing and was grateful to him for just being around. Right now she wasn’t in any mood to be soothed. But he went on: ‘Come along, let’s go into the village. Take the curtains to the cleaners. And you can select another of your masterpieces from the shop to grace these unworthy walls. Something really lurid that no one will want to nick.’

  There was still this cottage to be cleaned up. The guests in the other, Covenanter’s Cottage, had left late yesterday afternoon, so that was fully cleaned and made up ready for the next tenants. Nobody was due in either of them until four this afternoon. Better to go along with Stuart, take the curtains to the launderette at the back of Brenda’s shop, and sort things out from there on.

  Trying to simmer down, she went into the bathroom, washed her hands, and peered gloomily into the mirror above the basin.

  She had very fine, almost silvery hair, which Peter had urged her to grow long because he found it so delightful to drift strands of it across her breasts as if whipping them, before he made his usual violent entry into her. It was a nice sexy chat-line. She wondered, from what she had later learned, what line he had used on Stuart’s wife, and how many times, before they both went to their death.

  The sudden unbidden memory made her consider having her hair cut short when she next went into town. In any case, when she was all steamed up with irritation, as she was right now, it seemed to go lank, tangled, and muddy grey rather than silver. She stared into her own grey eyes. Even when she was at her busiest they looked heavy-lidded and drowsy. ‘Bedroom eyes,’ Peter had called them. But when she was in danger of losing her temper — like right now — her eyebrows lifted, her eyes widened as if drops had been put in them, and the drowsy blue-tinged grey became a steely glare.

  At this moment she was glaring at herself. Stupid. Snap out of it.

  She washed her hands and face, and groped for the hand towel.

  It was blotched with lipstick. She remembered that the brat’s mother had used enough to make her mouth look like the slit in a pillar-box. She gathered the towel up along with the others, and headed out to collect kitchen tea-towels, adding them to the basket of things to be cleaned in the usual Saturday routine.

  Stuart was waiting, smiling reassuringly. He touched her arm to calm her down. But his fingertips were still sticky. She waved him to take his turn in the bathroom.

  The interior of her ageing Volvo retained a lovely clean, crisp smell — the smell of newly planed wood and a hint of varnish, from the last time she had helped Stuart deliver one of his restored bits of furniture to Balmuir Lodge. When she started it up, a faint flurry of sawdust made her sneeze.

  Stuart was silent during the drive uphill and over the ridge towards the village. He stared straight ahead, not even glancing at the beautiful plunge of moorland to his left, dappled by the shadows of scudding clouds, or the hills beyond, as insubstantial as the clouds themselves. She sensed that he was mutely driving for her, anticipating each corner and each touch of the brake. Stoical — or taut with frustration? Another three years to go before he would be legally free to drive again.

  Brenda was swapping details of some comp
licated medical histories with a customer almost as broad and red-faced as herself. Anna tried not to catch any of the conversation. People in this village really did have the most nauseating symptoms, yet tended to live well into their nineties. She waved to Brenda and went past her to the launderette at the back.

  When she had got things started, she found Stuart studying the selection of her watercolours along the west wall of the shop.

  ‘How about this one? Looks threatening enough.’

  It was one of her favourites, showing a grim, dark Border castle against a shimmering haze of heather. She was almost glad that nobody had so far wanted to buy it. Now she could reclaim it.

  She waved at the gap on the wall. ‘I’ll replace it with a new one next week, Brenda.’

  ‘Another of those rowan tree pictures, Mrs Chisholm? Folk seem to go for that sort of picture.’

  ‘It will depend on Mrs Chisholm’s artistic mood of the moment,’ said Stuart.

  Anna could never tell whether remarks like this were genuine or faintly mocking. His long, rather melancholy face remained impassive even when he was obviously making a joke, and she often had the feeling that he had changed his mind about a comment before he was halfway through it.

  As she drove back into the stableyard she had to swerve to avoid a bright silver Honda parked beside the old horse trough ablaze with petunias and nemesias.

  ‘Somebody’s arrived damned early,’ said Stuart.

  ‘Oh, Lor’.’ It wasn’t just the thought of someone turning up before they were supposed to that wrenched the moan from Anna. It was the sight of another car; a battered little yellow Fiat parked at the end of Stables Cottage. A small dog was leaping up and down on the back seat, yelping and shoving its nose against the window.

  The dog was Cocky, so called because it was a cocktail of most of the breeds in the neighbourhood. And with the car and the dog here, she knew who else must be somewhere nearby.

  As Anna got out of the station wagon, her mother-in-law made her appearance from round the end of Stables Cottage as if she had been waiting there for her cue, her sleeves flapping as she raised her arms in a gesture that managed to be dramatic and meaningless at the same time. Today, thought Anna resignedly, Queenie was in her mood to personify the scatterbrained, fluttering old relatives seen in so many old Hollywood warm-hearted comedies.

  Peter had always called her Mum, and Anna had followed suit; but after his death his mother had insisted that Anna should call her Queenie. It wasn’t a name that Anna found easy to use, because it simply didn’t seem to fit, especially when she was in one of her tragedienne moods.

  Today she was playing a distraught role, laced with puzzled reproaches.

  ‘These poor folk — house with no curtains, nothing ready. Whatever has been going on?’

  ‘They shouldn’t be here until four this afternoon,’ said Anna, ‘and it’s not one o’clock yet.’

  A couple came out behind Queenie. They looked sullen and dissatisfied.

  ‘Mr and Mrs Robinson?’

  ‘Er . . . oh, yes. Walter Robinson. And this is Sharon. My wife.’

  The girl’s shoulders twitched under her pink shirt, with the two top buttons revealingly undone. Her thighs moved within her pale grey chinos. She was a fidget, thought Anna; but her twitches were just the kind to fascinate a certain sort of man. Like her husband. If this man was her husband. Anna was used to the signs. But at least they didn’t appear to have a marmalade fiend in tow.

  As they stood under the hanging basket beside the cottage door, Anna was aware of a flowery smell which didn’t come from the fuchsias twitching their silent bells in the faint breeze. Between them, Walter and Sharon had produced a suffocating blend of sweetish perfume and a spicy aftershave. The blend would probably vary according to the direction of the wind.

  It suddenly dawned on Anna. ‘Just a minute. This is Covenanter’s Cottage. You were booked into Stables Cottage.’

  ‘Which is in no state to be occupied,’ said Queenie. ‘There aren’t any curtains. You can’t expect people to go into a house with half the curtains missing.’

  ‘Especially in the bedroom,’ said Sharon; and giggled.

  ‘Our brochure makes it clear that people aren’t expected to arrive until four o’clock,’ Anna reminded her. ‘And,’ she said again, ‘it’s only just gone one.’

  Walter Robinson was beginning to look more and more peevish. ‘Now, look. I mean, how can you expect people to know exactly how long it’s going to take to get here?’

  ‘You could always have gone for a drive,’ said Anna. ‘Lots of people do, on their way here. The countryside’s rather gorgeous.’

  ‘You can’t just send folk away when they’ve only just got here. I insisted that they made themselves comfy in here.’ Queenie favoured the newcomers with her most endearing smile. ‘You’ll have to forgive Anna. For some time now she’s had to cope on her own. Very bravely.’ Her gaze did not for even a second flicker in the direction of Stuart, standing beside the car. ‘But no harm done. We’ve fixed it nicely, haven’t we?’

  Walter Robinson shuffled from one foot to the other. He was a tall, gangling man in his mid-thirties, with a narrow crest of hair aping the latest footballers’ fad, and a half-smile, half-scowl, that went awkwardly on and off. ‘I reckon we can make do.’ Sharon was tugging at his arm, easing him back indoors.

  When the door had closed on them, Anna rounded on her mother-in-law. ‘You shouldn’t have switched them in there. That one’s smoking, the other’s non-smoking. How do you know that the other people will want the non-smoker?’

  ‘I’m sure they’ll manage. Since you weren’t around, somebody had to cope.’

  Stuart edged forward. Queenie still did not even say hello. Without a word he took the painting from the Volvo, and carried it carefully into Stables Cottage. Then he returned for the box of bacon, eggs, bread, butter and milk which were always put in the fridge for newcomers who had not yet explored the village store. Unlike Queenie, he had fitted himself neatly into the programme.

  The cleaned curtains were still too damply creased to be put up. Anna went into the Balmuir Mains airing cupboard in search of a spare set, and by four o’clock had finished hanging them, tidying the place up, and replacing the stained brochures and information sheet with clean copies ready for the arrival of the second couple booked in for the week.

  At one minute to four, a blue Escort edged into the yard. The woman driver got out and made her way round to open the passenger door. The two made a complete contrast to the couple already installed. The woman had dark hair through which strands of something lighter straggled. She was surely younger than her wispy-bearded husband. As he eased himself out of the car his head was lowered and his shoulders hunched as if bent by some bone disease, or by a reluctance to look anyone in the eye.

  Anna went to greet them. ‘Mr and Mrs Maxwell? Welcome to Stables Cottage.’

  The woman stared at her with alert, bright hazel eyes. ‘I thought our booking was for Covenanter’s Cottage.’

  ‘They’re identical. We had a bit of a mix-up over arrangements this morning, but I’m sure you’ll be happy with the result.’

  Stuart was standing by the boot of the car, ready to offer a hand with the luggage, but Maxwell thrust himself towards it and took out just one case. He limped towards the cottage door which Anna was holding open.

  Inside, she showed them the microwave, the television, and the central heating controls. Then she fanned out the new brochures. ‘We do have some very fine gardens in the neighbourhood. One famous one only an hour or so away.’

  Mrs Maxwell said: ‘We’ll only be taking a few short-distance trips, I expect. As I told you when I booked, my husband has had a long illness. Not very long out of hospital. He really needs a nice, quiet place to relax.’

  ‘I don’t think you’ll find us too rowdy. Only the occasional owl, and maybe a few geese over the loch.’

  The woman was staring at the card propped on th
e windowledge. ‘It says ‘No Smoking’. As I told you when I booked,’ she said again, ‘we wanted the cottage where smoking is allowed. My husband does rely on his cigarettes.’

  If he had been that ill, thought Anna, smoking wouldn’t do him much good. But aloud she said: ‘I’m sorry. If it’s really essential for him, I suppose we can waive the restriction this week.’

  And at the end of the week, we’ll have to give the place a good airing.

  Maxwell gave her a furtive nod as she passed him on the way out.

  On her way across the yard to where Stuart had been cleaning out the inside of the Volvo, she noticed that the bedroom curtains of Covenanter’s Cottage were closed.

  Stuart nodded towards the cottage she had just left.

  ‘Well, what d’you make of them?’

  ‘A bit creepy,’ she said. ‘I don’t know quite how to put it, but . . . there’s a sort of smell about him. I mean, he may have spent some time in hospital, but it’s not quite —’

  ‘He hasn’t been out long.’

  ‘Out of hospital?’

  ‘Out of prison,’ said Stuart bleakly. ‘That face of his, that’s prison pallor. And the smell — like the skin of someone who’s been packing mushrooms, right?’

  ‘Yes,’ she whispered, not sure whether she ought to look at him.

  ‘I’ve lost mine by now, haven’t I?’ said Stuart.

  Chapter Two

  The shrill of the phone late that afternoon jarred Anna out of an uneasy doze. She had meant to switch the answering machine on, but had settled down to one of the Saturday supplements and ploughed her way through a feature on single mothers and sex-starved widows before drifting off into a dream too vague to be analysed. She was reluctant to move from the armchair, but the phone went on ringing until at last she had to go and answer it.

  Chet Brunner was as peremptory as ever. ‘Is Stuart Morgan with you?’

  ‘I’m afraid not.’

  ‘Where the hell is he? I’ve been ringing his flat and the workshop, and there’s no reply.’